The IT Manager

Looking at the Scottish Independence polling data from 29/01/2012 to 7/8/2014, it is difficult to see how the Yes camp can swing a victory in the Scottish Independence vote. If you look at a 5 point moving average of all polls, you will see that whilst there has indeed been a recent upswing for “Yes”, there has been an even bigger upswing for “No”.

Averaging out the poll data also shows that whilst individual polls might have the Yes camp pushing the low 40s, the trend has never peaked over 40%.

If you take a 10 poll average, the recent trend is pretty much flat for “Yes” and broadly rising for “No”.

By my estimation, the “Yes” camp will need to swing well over 80% of the “Don’t Knows” just to get a marginal victory. That is not enough. To get a decisive win, they will have to convince a significant chunk of “No”voters to change their mind. That is a pretty tall order this close to the election.